


Things That Fade

by lucifel



Series: Band of Brother's: Drabbling Through The War [3]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Dark, Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-28
Updated: 2010-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:50:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucifel/pseuds/lucifel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three things that fade. (Three scenes from wartime.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things That Fade

**Author's Note:**

> Re-Post from 2007.
> 
> Based on the HBO series. No disrespect meant to the original non-fictionalized people.

1\. Starlight

Lew Nixon stumbles more so than walks into the group of men at the edge of camp. He's only mildly tipsy and functioning close to normal.

It doesn't take long for him to see what they're doing.

These aren't easy men, (easy men wouldn't get caught doing something that. Some that would so thoroughly divest them of Dick's respect,) hell Nix isn't even sure they're second battalion men. (Second battalion would beat the shit out of men like these.) So when he catches them torturing some girl like a bunch of schoolboys taunting an injured cat - he pulls rank on them anyway.

The men scatter when they see his bars.

The girl pulls further into the shadows once they leave and it isn't until Nix asks if she's alright. Until Nix sees her face, that he realizes he's seen it before. In shop windows and on photo prints. Captioned in unreadable German.

She must have been someone famous.

Some starlet.

Nix leaves her in the shadows, walks away. Thinking, as he looks for more Whiskey, that even starlight fades.

 

2\. Flight

Ronald Speirs is elated. He whoops and yells and behaves in a way that is distinctly unbecoming an officer. Someone would stop him, but none can keep up.

His blood should be throbbing in his veins, pooling and pushing in his ears. Instead, air gathers somewhere in his chest and a clear endless space opens up to lift him off his feet and spring him into the sky like a freely wheeling bird. Infinite and deathless, this is what thrums in his veins as he charges headlong into battle. Transitory, passing, this is the feeling that tells him he is alive.

This is flight.

 

3\. Sobriety

AN: This one is a little unclear by itself (it goes with Victorious) but it's set during Points if anyone cares.

Some men, when men are drunk, behave inexplicably and without logic. The consequences of actions taken in this state are unimportant to them because they are unforeseen. In these moments, it is the lack of deliberation which gives them the courage to act.

When Richard Winters puts his hand through a glass table, he isn't drunk.

He is sober and clear and perfectly aware of precisely what will happen.

He does it anyway.

"Christ Dick."

When Lewis Nixon walks into the room, he isn't sober.

Nix is almost never sober, (normally, he isn't soft spoken either,) but the shattered glass and broken skin dry him up and chill him down faster than whiskey can warm.

"Christ. You hurt yourself Dick what - ?"

Nix doesn't see the swing coming.

The floor, which he does see, is (he contemplates) exceedingly beautiful: all scarlet glow and starry twinkle.

From the ground, Nix watches the starlight - no, the candlelight play off the glass (those look like stars) and wonders how many shards Doc Roe can pull out before he bleeds to death.

"Christ."


End file.
